"Your case is desperate because all are combined against you; all are resolved upon your death--all, except me, and why? Because my love stands between you and them, a saving plank in the approaching hurricane. Your husband and his friend are bent on your destruction. He has left the house until it is accomplished. You are hemmed about with foes. Every servant in this household is suborned. They are men, carefully selected, who know no pity--on whose shoulders, were they bared, you would see the galleys-brand--men who would one and all look on your death struggle with indifference--as callous as the bravo of romance. I have before told you, and it is more true than ever now, that my love is your only safeguard. I hold the door ajar to Hope. Yield to my suit and grant me the boon I ask, and I swear that the shackles will fall from off your limbs; that your troubles will cease, for you'll be free. Free to depart with me to a distant land where in freshly-flowing happiness, the past shall be as a dream. Sorceress! What is this witchcraft that you exert over me? I love you all the more ardently for the long siege. Be mine the grateful task to rescue you from the clutches of these wretches. Say the word. We will quit France secretly together, and leave _them_ to the fate which they deserve." In the eagerness of his pleading, the abbé had edged close to Gabrielle. She could feel his hot breath--the beating of his heart against her arm--and she shivered from top to toe, as Toinon outside was shivering, her eyes distended by alarm. The frayed string was about to snap. The long-expected moment was come. Thank God that suspense was over. "I thank you for your engaging candour," Gabrielle said in a voice that was clear and steady. "I had learned to know you for a villain, but had not gauged the deeps of your rascality. False to the core. True to nothing but your own devilish passions. A Judas even to your confederates!"